


Stay Tonight

by sistercacao



Series: GW Advent Calendar [3]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:03:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistercacao/pseuds/sistercacao
Summary: Heero is leaving for a mission on Mars, and Duo has never told him how he really feels. So before he never sees him again, before he never says the things he's too afraid to say, at least he can give him something to remember him by.





	Stay Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ in 2012 and written for the GW Advent Calendar.

I sat at the edge of my bed, staring at a small spot of shadow in the general darkness. They had said there would be a chance of snow tonight, a white Christmas Eve, but it had turned into a night of biting cold instead, cold enough to freeze the water vapor right out of the air. No snow, no nothing. It worked for me. This was more appropriate.  
  
Jesus, I needed a cigarette. I couldn’t find my goddamn lighter anywhere. I had looked for a half an hour, as soon as I had gotten off the phone with Heero, and it was in none of the spots I always left it. My fingers dug into the mattress under me, wishing I had something, anything, to calm my nerves. I had flushed all the alcohol in the house down the toilet a few weeks ago, back when I realized I had been going to bed drunk every night since Heero had told me. I had nothing to back me up now, though, when I needed it the most.  
  
I knew he would ask to come over tonight, and hell, if he hadn’t, I would have suggested it myself. At least Heero had the decency not to call it for what it was. One more for the road. A little something to remember me by. Hey, Duo, can I come over and bang you out one more time? I don’t know how long it will be until I can get laid on Mars, so do me a solid for old time’s sake. I choked back a laugh, imagining anything like that ever coming out of Heero’s mouth. Even if it may have been what he was thinking.  
  
It probably was. There was not a whole lot to this arrangement between us. Preventers had turned out to be kind of a lonely place, a place full of soldiers, sure, but not like us, not warriors, not guerrilla fighters. Most of the agents had something to go home to, but not me, and not Heero either. We hadn’t exactly been friends to begin with, but the first time we had gone for a drink after work, the first time Heero had even hinted that he felt that lonely too, it had seemed inevitable we would end up in bed together, somehow. Hell, it was cheaper than drinking.  
  
I didn’t care that he called me at all hours of the night or that he acted as formal and distant as ever at work. He didn’t care that I smoked in his apartment and left wearing his clothing half the time. It was a perfect arrangement, uncomplicated. I couldn’t imagine Heero wanting more from anyone, least of all me. And I guess it was just about all I could handle, too. All I wanted. Right?  
  
But then he was offered the post on Mars, and I didn’t even know until he told me, still naked and panting above me, that he took it. Leaving on Christmas morning, five AM flight. And it wasn’t until I noticed myself drinking just to get to sleep that I realized that Heero leaving was bothering me. That maybe I wasn’t just lonely. That maybe to me, Heero was...  
  
Jesus, I didn’t know. I needed a cigarette. And it was too late, anyway, to figure it out. Heero was coming over for a goodbye fuck and then he was leaving for goddamn ever. It was too late.  
  
I heard the doorbell ring and flicked a light switch on in the apartment as I went to answer it. I didn’t want him to know I was waiting for him in the dark. It was pathetic.  
  
Heero stood in the doorway and looked me up and down. His heavy coat was unbuttoned, and beneath it was his Preventers’ issue uniform, for the flight in the morning. He looked tired and I didn’t know what else. Grim like always. Inscrutable. He had a couple of suitcases beside him, his hands shoved in his pockets. There was a bit of red on those high cheekbones from the cold outside.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
He nodded in greeting and stepped inside, grabbing his bags to pull them in.  
  
“Is that all your stuff?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Heero stood awkwardly in the center of the living room, like he was here for the first time. Jesus. We had fucked on that couch, and now he didn’t even want to sit on it.  
  
Despite the cold, I could hear people running around on the street outside. Someone was singing off-key, sounding like he was having the time of his life.  
  
“Come on,” I said, reaching for Heero. He let me lead him to the bedroom.  
  
I went for the light here, too. If it was the last time I was going to see him, I wanted to remember what he looked like in my bed.  
  
“So, have you seen your new place?”  
  
He took a seat on the mattress.  
  
“They sent me some pictures.” He shrugged. “It’s too big... and empty.”  
  
I didn’t know what that meant, or why I had started down this inane path of conversation, because I sure didn’t care what his fucking apartment on Mars looked like. He hadn’t cared much for his place here, either, but I had liked it just fine. The shower was big enough for two people. I liked going over to his place for that fact alone.  
  
“Well, Heero, you could live in a shoebox and be comfortable,” I said.  
  
“I don’t need a lot of space if it’s just me.”  
  
“Yeah, I guess.”  
  
I sat down on the bed next to him, because I didn’t know what to do with myself. His blue eyes slid over to peer at me from beneath the shadow of his bangs.  
  
“Hey, I found this,” he said, fishing something out of his pocket. It was my lighter. “You left it at my apartment.”  
  
Damn it. I had been looking for it, but as soon as he said it, I wished he had just kept it. Like it meant something, anything to him. A memory of me.  
  
“Thanks,” I said, but didn’t move to take it. He reached across me instead to place it on the dresser by the bed, and when he began to pull back, I grabbed at his coat and pulled him to me. I pressed my mouth against his, and seemed to catch him by surprise. Well, maybe that would be something he’d remember about me.  
  
There was a kind of strange impatience to the way we undressed. He let me pull my shirt over my head before he pushed me down to the bed and began working on my jeans himself. When I was only in my boxers, he tore off his coat and let it fall to the floor, then his uniform shirt and pants, giving them only a tiny bit more care even though he had to wear them in the morning. It didn’t seem to bother him, and that made it linger in my mind for a minute, even as he started kissing a hot, wet line down my neck.  
  
But it didn’t matter, did it? He had chosen to go to Mars. He had taken the job, knowing it meant we probably would never see each other again. That was the bottom line, Maxwell. I didn’t matter. I was a goddamn memory to him already.  
  
I just didn’t understand. What was my problem? This was sex. That was what it had been all along. And maybe it couldn’t have been just anyone to Heero, because I knew him in a way no one else did, because we were alone in the world in that same way, but that didn’t mean that it mattered to him. Why did it matter to me? What did I want? Why did it hurt so bad when he told me he was leaving?  
  
Heero lingered at the edge of my underwear, his breath hot against my skin. He curled his fingers around the waistband and pulled them down gently, trailing them with his tongue. I screwed my eyes tightly shut when he took me in his mouth, and when I opened them again, I realized he was watching me, taking in my reaction.  
  
How old were we now? Twenty-two, twenty-three? How long had we been sleeping together? A year maybe? Longer? Why had I just been content to let the time flow over us, never stopping to appreciate it, to try to measure its value, what it meant? Had I really thought it would last forever? No, of course not, nothing good in my life ever did. Everybody I cared about left eventually, one way or another. Everything I loved disappeared.  
  
Oh Christ. Jesus. I wanted to bury the thought as soon as it came to me, but it bled out of my chest, spreading painfully outward along my nerves like an electric shock. I covered my face with my hands, afraid Heero could see it on my face somehow, and I could feel him moving to lean above me.  
  
“Duo...”  
  
I faked a smile that I was sure was fooling no one.  
  
“Come on, Yuy, don’t make me beg for it.”  
  
He snorted and reached for the bottle in the nightstand drawer, pressing his mouth to mine, slipping his tongue inside as he worked me open with his fingers. I tried to memorize the way his kiss felt, the taste of his mouth, the temperature of his bare skin against my own. I ran my hands down his arms like I was learning the specs of an enemy base, following the paths his muscles took, the way they shifted beneath my fingers, like my life was on the line.  
  
He positioned himself between my legs, staring down at me with an expression I couldn’t read. I wanted it to mean so many things, but it was wishful thinking and I knew it. What was I even bothering for? He had chosen to go. He had chosen to leave me behind. That was all I needed to know, wasn’t it?  
  
He entered me slowly, his gaze steady on mine. His eyes were a dark blue shadow under his bangs, but I couldn’t look away. Maybe in time I would forget the exact curve of his jaw, the angle of his shoulders, his back, hell, maybe someday I would forget what he even looked like, but I would never forget his eyes, the dark blue depth of their stare. They paralyzed me, even as he started to move above me, pulling a moan out of my throat with his thrusts. I couldn’t look away.  
  
Music filtered in from the street outside, people laughing as they went in and out of the houses and bars below. A girl shouted, a scream of joy, of whatever kind of happiness it is that makes you yell about it, not really having the words. It was Christmas, after all, people had things to celebrate, things to be grateful for.  
  
It just wasn’t fucking fair, was it?  
  
I wrapped my legs around Heero’s waist, pulling him closer, and he reached for me, for the last time, pressing himself tight against me, his breath hot against my ear. I held on painfully fast, like there was nothing beneath us but an abyss, open air leading me down into the hole I had been trying to crawl out of since I was eight years old. And he would hold me now, but soon he would drop me back down there again, and I would be alone once more, for good.  
  
“Duo... Duo, say my name... please...”  
  
He curled a hand around the hair at the base of my neck, tightening it around my braid, his thrusts growing faster, more desperate.  
  
“Please... say it...”  
  
“Heero... Heero, Christ...”  
  
I arched against him, my body in ecstasy, my heart in pieces. He caught my mouth with his and held me fast, pumping in and out of me, until he was shuddering at the precipice of orgasm, taut as a wire against me, and he reached down to take me in his hand and I came shouting his name. He trembled in my arms as he climaxed, breathing hard against my slack lips, voice a thin whisper.  
  
“Duo...”  
  
If I never got to hear him say my name again in my entire life, at least I got to hear it like this, one last time. Blue eyes and a sweet voice whispering my name like it meant something. It was enough. It would have to be enough, because I was never going to get anything more from him.   
  
We lay there for a while more, the sheets tangled around our bodies, Heero half on top of me, his body warm and slightly damp with exertion. I listened to the muted voices outside over the blood rushing in my ears. The clock on the wall said it was well past midnight. Heero would have to leave soon to get to his shuttle. It was already over.  
  
He shifted beside me, looking at the time.  
  
“Shit.”  
  
He rose to his knees, looking at me with an inscrutable expression. One hand reached out to brush the hair out of my eyes, and I just stared at him, because what could I fucking say? Nothing that mattered at this point. It was over.  
  
“Duo... I should get going.”  
  
“Yeah.” It was hard to keep my voice even.  
  
He rose off the mattress, grabbing his clothes. I searched for where Heero had flung mine and quickly pulled them back on. His uniform was wrinkled from laying in a pile at the foot of my bed, and Heero seemed annoyed as he shrugged it back on, sighing as he fiddled with his tie.  
  
I leaned in the corner of my room, my arms crossed protectively. He turned and looked at me as he pulled his heavy coat back on.  
  
“I...”  
  
Suddenly he went to the dresser and grabbed my lighter off of it. He turned it over in his hands, his brows furrowed in the center of his forehead.  
  
“I-I’m taking this,” he said, putting it in his pocket.  
  
I stared at him.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because it’s yours,” he said quietly, and the words pierced right through my heart.  
  
“Goodbye, Duo,” he said.  
  
He turned and left the room, heading for the door. Walking out of my life.  
  
Music floated up from outside, as people shouted and screamed for joy, just because it was Christmas. If there was ever a day to be happy, it should be today. And here I was, frozen, watching Heero go, watching all the happiness I had just disappear for good.  
  
I would stay here alone in the dark, just because it was what I had always known? I wasn’t even going to put up a fight?  
  
It hit me like a wave then, pushing me forward, sending me racing out after him.  
  
I reached Heero as his fingers curled around the doorknob, and grabbed for him, sliding my arms around his chest, holding onto him for dear life, like the floor was falling out from under me. It was. The whole damn world was crumbling beneath me. Heero was taking it with him.  
  
“Heero...”  
  
My voice didn’t even sound like my own. It was ragged and hoarse, the voice of a desperate man.  
  
“It’s Christmas Eve... please... stay.”  
  
I dug my fingers into Heero’s coat, pressed hard against him. The wool felt coarse against my cheek, under my palms. I tried to memorize the feel of it, tried to absorb it through my skin, just in case this really was the last time I ever saw him. I breathed shallowly against the tightness in my chest, screwing my eyes shut against the sudden stinging at their corners.  
  
“Duo,” he said quietly. “I have to be on a plane in four hours.”  
  
“Then don’t get on the plane.”  
  
For a few seconds, an eternity, we stood there, Heero gone motionless, as if stricken, and me, hanging on pathetically, like a child, a fucking kid who was scared to lose everything again. Some meaningless jumble of words tumbled through my head, a nonsensical prayer to a God I didn’t believe in, repeated over and over.  
  
Please, don’t let me be too late. Please, make it not too late. Please.  
  
I felt Heero slide his hand over one of mine. I dug my fingers deeper into his coat, as if I could keep him from prying them off.  
  
“Do you know what you’re asking me for?”  
  
His voice was so quiet it was nearly a whisper.  
  
I was asking him to change his life for me, for something I didn’t even know how to articulate. For whatever it was we shared between us, this heart-wrenching, all-consuming tragedy, this small, flickering light in the darkness of my life. And I knew it was too much to ask. I had realized it too late to make a difference in his heart. Hadn’t I?  
  
I pressed against him in answer, nodding against his shoulder. He still smelled like my bed. If I never saw him again, at least I would have this moment, the warmth of his palm, the scent of him.  
  
He slipped his fingers into the spaces between mine and gently lifted them off his coat, curling our hands together. He turned in my arms to face me, his expression fierce, deadly serious. This would be the end, I knew. This would be when I lost him forever. I stared down at our joined hands, trying to memorize the way his felt in mine, feeling his stern gaze like it was burning me.  
  
“I have conditions,” he said.  
  
There were a lot of things I was expecting Heero to say. That was not one of them.  
  
“What?”  
  
Heero’s voice held a strange tone of uncertainty.  
  
“You’re asking me to abandon my position. You’re asking me to stay for you. If... if that’s what you’re asking me for, Duo, I have conditions.”  
  
I could feel my eyes going wide. When I didn’t say anything in response, Heero continued, his control, always strong, was wavering now, and for the life of me, he sounded just as desperate as I felt.  
  
“I want everything from you, Duo. Not just... this, not just sex. Not just your body.”  
  
He searched for the right words.  
  
“I want... you. All of you. I want your heart. Your... soul.”  
  
I couldn’t hear any more, the crushing tightness in my chest wouldn’t allow it. Instead, I collapsed into him, burying my face in the crook of his neck. He thrummed with anxious energy against me, waiting for an answer that should have been utterly obvious.  
  
“You fucking idiot,” I breathed, all the relief in the world washing over me. “You were taking my heart with you. It’s packed up in one of your goddamn suitcases.”  
  
Heero’s arms came up around me, and he slid his fingers into my hair, pulling me close against him. He let out a shuddering breath.  
  
“Duo...”  
  
“Why were you leaving, you asshole,” I laughed, though it came out dangerously close to a sob.  
  
“I didn’t think... I couldn’t ask you, I was afraid you didn’t... I was a coward.”  
  
“I know, I know,” I sighed, turning my head to find his mouth. “Me too.”  
  
I kissed him in apology, taking in the soft press of his lips, the wet heat of his tongue-- I had always been doing this, I realized, cataloging these moments, for the day when they would be gone. Why had I been so stupid? I had almost let him go. I hadn’t realized I had a choice.  
  
I guess he hadn’t either. A couple of idiots, the both of us.  
  
He took off his coat and let it drop to the floor, stepping away from the doorway like he was backing away from the edge of a cliff. And that was it. The bags, the flight, they were forgotten behind us as I pulled him back into the warmth of my bedroom. The four hours came and went and suddenly there was grey, murky light creeping in from the windows and with it the reality that Heero was staying with me.  
  
I guess I had something to be grateful for, after all. Desperately, desperately grateful.  
  
“Merry Christmas,” Heero said, peering up at the light outside.  
  
“Merry Christmas.” I curled my arms a little tighter around him. Okay, maybe I still needed a bit more convincing this was real. “Does this mean I get to keep my lighter?”  
  
He snorted. “I guess so.”  
  
“Hey, aren’t they wondering where you are?”  
  
“Probably. I turned my phone off when I came over.”  
  
I let that little fact settle over me a minute.  
  
“Maybe you should let them know you’re not dead or something...”  
  
Heero ran a hand down my back, curling it around my braid.  
  
“Later.”  
  
I chuckled, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “Fine.”  
  
“I should probably figure out where I’m going to live, though,” he said quietly.  
  
“Aw, you can’t get your old place back? I liked that place.”  
  
He shrugged. “I doubt it.”  
  
“Damn... well, I guess you’ll just have to stay here until you’re sick of me.”  
  
He suddenly rolled us over so he was leaning over me in the bed, staring intensely down at me.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Well, I don’t know. I might not let you leave even if you do get sick of me.”  
  
He kissed me fiercely, his gaze still serious when he pulled away.  
  
“That won’t happen.”  
  
“Then stay.”  
  
“All right,” he whispered, as he sank back against me.  
  
The Christmas celebration outside had long since quieted, everyone returning to their homes for the night, but ours had just begun.  
  
For once, I had everything I wanted, and this time, I wasn’t going to lose it again.


End file.
